American Football: Lions fire Mariucci

after playing a terrible game on thanksgiving the detroit Lions have fired head coach Steve Mariucci and some of his assistant coaches, no word on who the new coach will be...

got to see a bit of this game on the tube, looked like the team has quit on him, i have to wonder why we have to watch the lions every year on Thanksgiving....

sports.yahoo.com...;_ylt=AuXWKb2FDzt7b.d5cOtnO6A5nYcB?slug=ap-lions-mariuccifired&prov=ap&type=lgns

I know this is an unoriginal thought, but will someone PLEASE explain why Matt Millen has not been fired, and long ago, at that?

As most of y'all have heard--or, perhaps, are tired of hearing--I am from the Bay Area and grew up a huge Giants fan who worshipped the then-young Willie Mays. I still follow closely all the Bay Area teams except the perennially putrid Warriors and the Sharks (I'm not a hockey fan until the last two rounds of the playoffs).

Matt Millen was a dirty football player, even by Raiders' standards. In my opinion, he has manifested bigotry against gays on at least two occasions. By any rational opinion, he's done so at least once.

No, I'm not gay. I'm not black, either, but bigotry offends me and while I don't know of any overtly racist remarks this jerk has made, he's at least once made clear his bigotry against gays, and in my opinion he's done it at least twice.

Please note, there are other similar things I could go into here, including the fact Millen arguably violated the league's "diversity rule" by not interviewing a black candidate before hiring Mariucci--a rule which I think is an absolute crock, and whose violation I thus don't hold against him. But he's got LOADS of this baggage.

He's not a nice guy, he wasn't a clean player, and he often crossed the line and racked up penalties that hurt his team. Now, inexplicably, he's the GM of one of the NFL's long-time teams and has amassed a just-plain-atrocious record over a sustained period of time.

About 3 years ago, he was rewarded with a big contract extension, instead of a firing. Nothing in the team's current roster, or its current use of its salary cap, gives any but the most sanguine of fans reason to believe they will get meaningfully better any time in the foreseeable future. And THAT stuff ain't Mariucci's fault.

So, at the risk of sounding like someone with a keen grasp of the obvious....

When the hell will the person(s) at the top of the Lions remove the cancer from this once-proud organization and can Millen's sorry ass?

B.H.N.

This certainly isn't a surprising move by the Lions, this team is way under-achieving. As for Millen, I heard a story that Paterno doesn't like to acknowledge him, won't return his calls, etc. I read yesterday that Millen got an extension again at the beginning of this season. And the guys on the field are there becasue of him. I'm with you, BHN, get him the heck outta there!

About time I am so happy and maybe Mooch can help the Saints:bounce:

I thought that Haslet was doing a pretty good job down there, especially given the axtra burden the team has on them this season. Have you been hearing that he's gonna be let go?

Did anyone see the guy with the "Fire Millen" sign at the game today? They had security tackle him. I guess Matt was scared.